Young children make and communicate meaning about their world in multiple ways, particularly through their engagement with the arts (visual arts, dance, drama, music, storytelling, media) and technology. Building from your developing knowledge of curriculum frameworks pertaining to The Arts and Technology and the general capabilities, you will research contemporary meaning making processes available to young children and explain how teachers support such meaning making in early childhood learning environments as they engage in curriculum decision making. Through the careful design of learning spaces, including natural spaces, you will demonstrate your understanding of children’s development, strengths, needs and interests and also ensure that all children can participate. Reflecting on early childhood pedagogies, you will identify potential issues with ICT use and propose strategies to support the safe, responsible and ethical use of ICT in learning and teaching. You will gain personal and practical experience in using the different symbol systems and ways of understanding and representing and making meaning of the world. The unit will equip you with dispositions for valuing the use of The Arts and Technologies for effective teaching and learning and with a working knowledge of some fundamental tools that can be applied across curriculum learning areas in early childhood contexts.

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Feedback from Student feedback

A lot of content to be covered and while some of the activities were useful sometimes the amount was quite overwhelming.

Reflect on the relevance of activities to assessment and essential learning.

Feedback from Student feedback

A really valuable and enjoyable unit with lots of resources for my future teaching career.

Keep revising the unit as needed for best practice and continued relevance.

Feedback from Personal reflection

Many students did not attend tutorials, despite offering these after school hours as previously requested.

Consider offering split or alternating times for tutorials to enable all to attend at least half.